EXODUS 23:20-33 [NLTse]
20 “See, I am sending an angel before you to protect you on your journey and lead you safely to the place I have prepared for you. 21 Pay close attention to him, and obey his instructions. Do not rebel against him, for he is My representative, and he will not forgive your rebellion. 22 But if you are careful to obey him, following all My instructions, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will oppose those who oppose you. 23 For My angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, so you may live there. And I will destroy them completely. 24 You must not worship the gods of these nations or serve them in any way or imitate their evil practices. Instead, you must utterly destroy them and smash their sacred pillars.

25 “You must serve only the Lord your God. If you do, I will bless you with food and water, and I will protect you from illness. 26 There will be no miscarriages or infertility in your land, and I will give you long, full lives.
27 “I will send my terror ahead of you and create panic among all the people whose lands you invade. I will make all your enemies turn and run. 28 I will send terror ahead of you to drive out the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites. 29 But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply and threaten you. 30 I will drive them out a little at a time until your population has increased enough to take possession of the land. 31 And I will fix your boundaries from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the eastern wilderness to the Euphrates River. I will hand over to you the people now living in the land, and you will drive them out ahead of you.
32 “Make no treaties with them or their gods. 33 They must not live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against Me. If you serve their gods, you will be caught in the trap of idolatry.”

SERMON – “Dependent – Dependable”
After miraculously crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites began traveling to Mt. Sinai, in the Sinai Desert. The Lord had told Moses to bring the people of Israel to Sinai to worship Him once God had freed Israel from their slavery in Egypt. And it was in the Sinai Desert that they camped and constructed the Tabernacle from God’s directions (their moveable worship place), and collected the Ten Commandments and God’s other laws, and where the Lord prepared them for their new life in the land He had promised them.

But as you can see there wasn’t much for the Israelites at Sinai. Lots of mountainous terrain for pasturing their flocks and herds, and lots of level terrain for setting up their camps. And, as we saw in the first picture, too, enough bunch-grasses and spikelets and other desert-scrub to feed their flocks and herds, but not a lot of farmable land to sustain them.
So, it seems that this new life the Lord was seeking to lead them to was a dependent life: A life they were to depend upon Him to direct; a life they were to depend upon Him to provide for.

As we read this past week, because of the barrenness of Sinai, the Israelites had to depend upon God for the miraculous manna – what they called “bread from Heaven” – that the Lord sent to them every morning, and that they gathered to make delicious manna-bread and manna-cakes. And He proved Himself dependable. And they had to depend upon God for the occasional miraculous feasts of quail He sent their way. And He proved Himself dependable. And they had to absolutely depend upon Him for the water He’d provided that kept gushing forth from a rock and making large pools and small lakes out of the different plots around them: Enough to water their flocks and herds and to satisfy them all! The Lord was teaching His people to depend on Him, and He was proving Himself dependable!

And, in our reading, the Lord promises Moses that if the Israelites would carefully obey Him, following all the Lord’s instructions, then He would get in the way of those who tried to get in their way, and He would fight for them against those who wanted to fight them. And He would make sure they always had enough food, and roofs over their heads, and He would keep them healthy. There would be no miscarriages or infertility in their land, and He would give them long, full lives. And, He would make all the bullies and those trying to hurt them turn and run!

And sometimes God takes us to desert places, too, doesn’t He? Situations where we can’t help ourselves. We have no hope but Him. Nothing, but Him… And we can be tempted to curse those times, saying, “Lord, why have You forsaken me?” But, He’s not forsaking us. He’s teaching us to depend upon Him. And if we will depend on Him, He shows us that He is dependable…

When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, He didn’t ask us to do this or to do that so that He might achieve our salvation. No. He went to the cross and saved us all by Himself. Jesus took our sins and gave us His righteousness without any effort on our part. He simply asked us, “Do you believe?”

And when we believed, He sent us the Holy Spirit to nurture His supernatural life in us and bring us to perfect holiness a little bit at a time, all the days of our lives. And He asks us to cooperate with Him in that, but He’s doing the work in us!
In Philippians 2:12-13 the apostle Paul writes, “Work hard to show the results of your salvation.” He doesn’t say, “Work hard to be saved.” No. Jesus has saved us. No. He writes, “Work hard to show the results of our salvation!” And how do we show that? By “obeying God with deep reverence and fear.” And how are we able to obey God with deep reverence and fear? We’ll need to depend upon God, and He is dependable, because, Paul writes, “God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.” We can depend on Him! He is dependable!

In 1 Corinthians 15:10, the apostle speaks about it this way, “Whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out His special favor on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God Who was working through me by His grace.“

Hebrews 13:20-21 talks about such things this way: “Now may the God of peace—Who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with His blood—may He equip you with all you need for doing His will. May He produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to Him. All glory to Him forever and ever! Amen.

Not one word of, “Get your act together, Ben!” No commands for any of us to work, achieve, or perform. No, the prayer of Hebrews 13 is, “May God equip you to do His will,” because you can’t do His will on your own. And “may God produce in you every good thing that is pleasing to Him,” because we can’t produce anything that is pleasing to God on our own.
God has forgiven you through what Christ did on the cross, and there is nothing you can do to make you more forgiven or to make you less, except by not believing it. The Holy Spirit is within you, applying the holiness of Jesus to your soul – even as we speak! – and you can cooperate with Him in that by not giving in to the temptations you might face, but you can’t make yourself more holy. That’s an inside job, and only the Holy Spirit can do such inside work.
Ours is to depend on Him. He keeps proving Himself so very dependable!

Praise Team: Would you come forward as we pray? …
Abba: You want to protect us but we get in Your way seeking to protect ourselves; You want to take care of us but we won’t let you, set on taking care of ourselves; You want to heal us but we interfere by hiding our wounds away, keeping them, if possible, even from You; we want to make a life for ourselves instead of accepting the life You have for us; we strive and connive for meaning and worth instead of acknowledging the meaning and worth we have as Your daughters and Your sons… Forgive us, Dependable One. Grant us the gifts and help we need to rely on You, wait on You, trust in You no matter the threats or trials. You have always shown Yourself to be so very dependable, and we worship You…